It seems all I do I vent!!

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I am so glad this site exists coz otherwise I wouldn't know what to do.Here goes...My Ltc has 260 residents (43 of them belong to me all by myself. Ain't I lucky!) Anyways, between all of us nurses, we have at best 4 blood pressure cuffs, 1 (one) pulse ox, 6-7 thermometers (half of which don't work). Then some very intelligent person decided it was in the best interest of our residents to remove all the benadryl from the med carts and put them in locked storage (where noone has been able to find them) so that if one of my residents is having an itching spell or breaking out in hives, may God help them. Oh yeah,, we do have an emergency kit (the kind with antibiotics and phenergan is plenty stocked in each station's med room), the kind with epinephrine and glucagon is in a "centralized" location (Thank God I haven't needed to use it coz I think it's in the same place with those dang benadryls) . Did I mention that of my 43 residents, 21 of them are accucheck ac+hs??? Yeah sure, of course I get my meds done inside the 1hour period you are supposed to give them . I think I have finally decided that maybe nursing homes are not for me. maybe I should try the hospital and see if that's better suited for me. Then again, am LPN and it's no lie..most hospitals aren't necessarily begging me to come work for them

Why would the benedryl be locked up?? That is crazy! Its not like its a narc or a benzo! Yeah, I want to steal the benedryl... Maybe to get a nap!!! Sounds like that place needs better staffing and better equipment... Or maybe you need a new job!

I am so glad this site exists coz otherwise I wouldn't know what to do.Here goes...My Ltc has 260 residents (43 of them belong to me all by myself. Ain't I lucky!) Anyways, between all of us nurses, we have at best 4 blood pressure cuffs, 1 (one) pulse ox, 6-7 thermometers (half of which don't work). Then some very intelligent person decided it was in the best interest of our residents to remove all the benadryl from the med carts and put them in locked storage (where noone has been able to find them) so that if one of my residents is having an itching spell or breaking out in hives, may God help them. Oh yeah,, we do have an emergency kit (the kind with antibiotics and phenergan is plenty stocked in each station's med room), the kind with epinephrine and glucagon is in a "centralized" location (Thank God I haven't needed to use it coz I think it's in the same place with those dang benadryls) . Did I mention that of my 43 residents, 21 of them are accucheck ac+hs??? Yeah sure, of course I get my meds done inside the 1hour period you are supposed to give them . I think I have finally decided that maybe nursing homes are not for me. maybe I should try the hospital and see if that's better suited for me. Then again, am LPN and it's no lie..most hospitals aren't necessarily begging me to come work for them

I would be venting too if I had all those patients! I don't know how you do it. I am an RN & I work on a med/surg unit. We have a team nursing model on our unit...so me and an LPN share up to 10 patients together, plus we have a PCA to help us. And even that can be stressful depending on the acuity of the patients, but wow, why do they make you have so many patients? I would find another job if it is too much and too stressful. Good luck.
-Christine

What you describe is pretty typical of a nursing home. What I did was buy my own blood pressure cuff. I took it in and out of the facility with me each day I worked. The CNAs who worked with me knew I had it and I gladly lent it to them. Over time I also bought one of the electronic wrist cuffs, mostly to play around with because I didn't believe they were that accurate. But, the patient's started liking it, it took a fairly accurate pulse if their heartbeat wasn't too irregular and it stored this stuff in the memory. I also bought my own ear thermometer from the drug store and had to buy the disposable ear covers as well. That went over with great enthusiasm. Again, I kept it in my possession and came in with it and left with it each shift. I also had a basket of really nice smelling toiletries for the aides to use on patient's who didn't have families to supply those kinds of things for them. I often came in to work with a bottle of Juicy Juice and a couple of chocolate pudding cups for the med pass. This is how long term care goes, at least for me. It's not worth it to fight the system to get all the equipment you'd like to have. In my experience it isn't going to happen because nursing homes are all really pinching pennies. The nice thing about bringing in pudding and drinks is that if you get hungry you can eat it because you bought it.

I don't understand why Benedryl would be removed from the clinical area. If a patient has an order for a prn Benedryl it is supposed to be available along with the rest of their medications. I'm talking about patients who already have orders for Benadryl, not where you have called the doctor for a one time dose. Those medications are supposed to be packaged and stocked with the rest of each patient's medications. Maybe the pharmacy doesn't know what is going on. Pharmacy should be coming monthly and doing a physical audit of each patient's medications. They're going to be ticked if they see these things missing. My radar when off when you posted this, however, and I wondered if perhaps someone was stealing the Benadryl for themselves. It doesn't sound logical that a facility would lock up one particular medication and then not make it available to the patients when it was needed.

Sounds to me like you need to review the facility policy on the back up medication locker, how many there are, where they are and how to access them. Knowing this information is half your battle. You have a responsbility to keep yourself informed of these things. I know that in the last place I worked, we had a huge plastic box with all kinds of back up medications in it, but it was kept in one specific nursing station. A smaller box with the back up Schedule II and III narcotics was kept at another station. You would only know that if you worked there.